Another Journalist Reportedly Beheaded

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(CNN) — The ISIS terror group has published a video titled “A second message to America,” showing the beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff.

The video also threatens the life of British captive, David Haines.

Sotloff speaks to the camera before he is killed, saying he is “paying the price” for U.S. intervention.

The masked ISIS figure in the video speaks to U.S. President Barack Obama, telling him, “Just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people.”

Last week, Sotloff’s mother Shirley Sotloff released a video pleading with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi not to kill her son.

“Steven is a journalist who traveled to the Middle East to cover the suffering of Muslims at the hands of tyrants. Steven is a loyal and generous son, brother and grandson,” she said. “He is an honorable man and has always tried to help the weak.”

Sotloff appeared last month in an ISIS video showing the decapitation of another American journalist, James Foley. The militant in the video warned that Sotloff’s fate depended on what President Barack Obama did next in Iraq.

Steven Sotloff disappeared while reporting from Syria in August 2013, but his family kept the news secret, fearing harm to him if they went public.

Out of public view, the family and a number of government agencies have been trying to gain Sotloff’s release for the past year.

Sotloff, 31, grew up in South Florida with his mother, father and younger sister. He majored in journalism at the University of Central Florida. His personal Facebook page lists musicians like the Dave Matthews Band, Phish, Miles Davis and movies like “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Big Lebowski” as favorites. On his Twitter page, he playfully identifies himself as a “stand-up philosopher from Miami.”

In 2004, Sotloff left UCF and moved back to the Miami area.

He graduated from another college, began taking Arabic classes and subsequently picked up freelance writing work for a number of publications, including Time, Foreign Policy, World Affairs and the Christian Science Monitor. His travels took him to Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey — among other countries — and eventually Syria.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour said that Sotloff’s killing will step up pressure on Obama to devise a strategy to combat ISIS.

On Friday, Obama said it’s too soon to discuss what steps the U.S. would take against the militant group inside Syria. On how to deal with the group in Syria — where it was born and has a safe haven, mostly in the city of Raqqa — the president said: “We don’t have a strategy yet.”

Obama said on Friday that he has asked America’s top defense officials to prepare “a range of options.”

24 comments

Ford

These ISIS fighters feel that their cause is so just and that they occupy the moral high ground – – then why are they cowards and always hiding their faces? Obama, whom I don’t care for, at least is facing them and not hiding behind a mask. He really needs to step up to the plate though, even though I do not envy his job.

They are cowards.There is no reasoning with them.They have this twisted pagan-arrogant minset that makes them the way they are.The only way to stop them is complete elimation from the earth-whether or not innocent people are killed in the process.Wherever they are-Russia-Syria-Iraq-Iran-India-total obiviation is the only way.The longer the world waits-the more unstoppable they become.

cast0ff

jpwillys

Journalists need to stop going to these areas, espeicially if not embedded with US Troops. I am sorry for these families loss, as I am for all who have fallen trying to protect those whom cannot protect themselves. The US needs to tell Syria that we are going to enter your country until the threat has been neutralized, and then actaully carry it out. The members of ISIS do not represent nor are they fighting in the name of any GOD, even though they may believe that. But then again they may believe the Earth is flat and that the afterlife will be better than this one. I think the US could help them out with getting to the afterlife.

Archer

Agreed! “Sotloff speaks to the camera before he is killed, saying he is “paying the price” for U.S. intervention.” I am sorry for the family and for him that this happened, but why say what they want you to say if they’re going to kill you? Why are you even there then? I would quit my job before going over there! Only military-trained reporters should be doing this work. If a news station insists on sending their people off to risk their lives, it should be an opt-out thing..if someone is willing to go over there for ANY reason you HAVE to be aware you might not be coming back! One day these evil people will be eradicated.

Scran-Tony

Tony Kobeski

SCRAN-TONY, really you’d better brush up on your history it was in the 1870’s -1880’s that the Indians were suppressed. If I am not mistaken they still exist, many people go to their casinos, so they are far from wiped out. Hardly hundreds of years ago. The American Indians weren’t savages, they turned hostile when the government broke the treaties they made and stole, yes stole their land. How would you react if that happened to your homestead?

Ralph W.

Mr Kobeski, you missed the biggest error in the above comment, in that General Custer and his forces were obliterated at the Battle of Little Big Horn; so much so that the battle completely overshadowed his rather impressive prior achievements.